do you believe in global warming?

Al Gore may enjoy popularity as the runner up for Time's Person of the Year and the Nobel Co-laurate for his environmentalist move to promote global warming awareness by making documentary movie An Inconvenient Truth, but some people I know, apparently, think that his movie is a hoax or don't put the issue as something we have to overcome urgently.

A colleague sent an email in the office mailing list about the rising sea levels to 59 cm by 2100 and things we can do to prevent the effect of global warming. While other colleagues agree to do something such as saving energy and toilet papers, an indifferent colleague said: “Setiabudi, where I live, is still 15 meters higher from the sea level. I have nothing to worry about, right?”

A friend, who is taking his master degree in the States, asked me recently to convince him that global warming is real. He had watched An Inconvenient Truth long time ago and was terrified. He believed that global warming was real and Al Gore was making the movie to crave attention before running for US president. But months after, he said again “global warming is b*** s***”. Days ago – as Iowa Caucus comes close and it’s obvious that Al Gore will not run for president – we accidentally talked about Time’s Person of the Year, he said again to me: “Al Gore must be an angel, but I’m a skeptic. Convince me.”

I didn’t answer brilliantly during that online chat but I thought a lot about it after. The arguments I found afterwards, apparently are something egocentric instead of elegantly environmentalist.

I realize that the most important thing is not whether global warming worth our belief but whether people will do something to make the world an environmentally better place, which you can do by using reusable bags and use papers thriftily as suggested by many who believe that the world is in danger due to the global warming.

Will you?

I will because I don’t need to see the effect of global warming in 20 years to come as shown in An Inconvenient Truth to make me say that the world is already a bad place to live. This judgment mostly falls to the urban areas. I thought Jakarta was badly polluted because we Indonesian could not create city planning properly. Now I realize that it happens in all over the world; Manhattan, Mexico City, Bangkok, etc.

Now come the selfish part. Women always worry about looks. So do I. I hate it when the polluted air blew over my beautiful face (please don’t throw up). Its not that I have the smoothest skin that doesn’t deserve polluted air but it’s uncomfortable to know that the dirty air is harming my skin. I don’t mind sweating because it’s good for skin and health but not polluted air. If you clean your face with cotton at night after work you will see how dirty the cotton could be and it could be worse when your activities include riding an ojek or field work.

One of the things I first complained when I went to school in Bandung is my booger becoming much darker compared to the ones in Padang. Java big cities, including cool-aired Bandung, are more polluted than the ones in other islands such as Padang. For someone who likes stroll and uses public transportation to commute, air pollution is one hell of an issue.

February 2nd, 2007, was supposed to be my first day working in a new company, but the massive flood interrupted it. I must stay at home, or my sister’s house, which had never been inundated during every Jakarta floods that happen almost annually.

These reasons are enough to make me use paper thriftily, although I’m still charging my cellphone all night or don’t do anything to protest the overcool air conditioning in my office. But I’m sure you are agree with me, that Bike to Work makes sense, but not people who protest the construction of Transkjakarta lanes.